Chapter V: Part 5

The name of the architect is unknown, but Bernardo Buontalenti, a friend of Capponi’s, did other work for him, so he may have aided in carrying out this memorial of faithful love; although as Signor Iodico Del Badia remarks, nothing in the façade recalls his style.[45] In the large saloon there is a stone fire-place, decorated with the arms, the motto and the olive branches, and the whole room is finely frescoed by Bernardo Poccetti with episodes from the lives of the Capponi family. Lodovico died in 1614, and by the marriage of his grandson’s daughter, Cassandro Capponi, the palace went to the Riccardi who sold it in 1803. Since then it has changed hands several times, and the last owner, Count Leonetti, sold it to M. de Witte.

PALAZZO MANNELLI

_Via de’ Bardi. No. 40._

The Mannelli lay claim to be descendants of the great Roman family of the Manlii. They certainly are among the most ancient families of Florence, and in old times were known as the Pontigiani, probably because having built the first wooden Ponte Vecchio they had the right to demand toll, and were the custodians of the bridge. They also bore the names of Piazzegiani and of Capo di Ponte, from living close to the Piazza of Sta. Felicita and on account of the position of their palace, and of their tower which abuts on the bridge and was built about the XIIth century.

Already a powerful family in 1173 when Mannello di Bellondino was created a knight of the Golden Spur for services rendered to his native city, they became yet stronger when his two sons Abate and Rinuccio attained the position of Elders of the Republic. They were Ghibellines, and intermarried with the great family of the Uberti. But several of Abate’s sons went over to the opposite faction, and to the valour of Messer Coppo was attributed the victory of the Guelphs at the battle of S. Jacopo in the Val di Serchio in 1256. He and his brother Mannelino fought against their cousins, sons of Rinuccio, at Montaperti, and had to fly from Florence with the other Guelph nobles. Six years later the Ghibellines were beaten, and when the “Peace of the Cardinal Latino” was proclaimed in 1280, members of the Mannelli family were found in both camps. Among the signatories of the peace was Lapo, son of Messer Coppo, who had fought gallantly at Campaldino and was knighted in 1292. He had many sons, all distinguished soldiers whose names figure in the long list of battles fought during the first half of the XIVth century. His grandson, Amaretto, was deputed to guard the Val d’Elsa against the Pisans. Amaretto declared himself a _popolano_ in 1361, and assumed the name of Pontegiani; sixteen years later he was one of the Buonomini, but being “admonished” by the Captains of the Guelph party he joined in the Ciompi riots and was knighted by the mob in 1380. When the nobles returned to power he was exiled, and to while away time wrote a history of the world. By his wife, Maria Strozzi, he left two sons, Francesco and Raimondo; the elder, to whom the world owes a large debt of gratitude, was probably an ecclesiastic. An intimate friend of Boccaccio, he made a copy of the _Decameron_ which would otherwise have been lost. Boccaccio left his own manuscript by will to Fra Martino of Signa for his life, and then to the monastery of S. Spirito in Florence. It is supposed to have perished either in the fire which destroyed the church in 1471, or more probably in Savonarola’s bonfire of “obscenities and vanities” in which so much that was beautiful and precious went into smoke and ashes. Boccaccio must often have been a guest in the Mannelli palace, and one regrets that his friend Francesco was not endowed with the pen of a Boswell, to have preserved for us the personality of Giovanni Boccaccio. Francesco Mannelli only finished his copy nine years after the death of his friend; it came into the possession of the Medici, but disappeared, and was fortunately discovered and bought by Messer Baccio Baldini, doctor to the Grand Duke Cosimo I. and librarian of the Laurentian library, where it now is. At the end of the manuscript is written: _Qui finisce la decima e ultima Giornata del libro chiamato Decameron cognominato Principe Galeotto, Scripto per me Francesco d’Amaretto Mannelli di 13 d’Agosto 1384. Deo sit laus et gloria, in ecternum ad honorem egregi Simacu Spinis et beneplacitum, et mandatum._

Raimondo, his brother, was a sailor, and distinguished himself in an engagement against Spinola, admiral of the fleet of Filippo Visconti, who then held Genoa. The allied fleets of Venice and Florence met the enemy off Rapallo on the 27th August, 1431, but the wind was unfavourable and many of their ships found great difficulty in getting out of Porto Fino. Raimondo, seeing his friends hard pressed, urged on his crew with threats, ran down Spinola’s galley and took him and sixty of his men prisoners. He was shabbily treated by the Venetian admiral in command, who took, not only the honour and glory, but the prisoners and consequently their ransom, from him. Mannelli’s portrait is painted among other seafaring worthies on one of the ceilings in the Pitti palace. Messer Coppo’s posterity died out in the XVIIth century, and the present branch of the family descend from his brother Nerlo, whose son Chele was surnamed Gorget, from his uncomfortable habit of wearing that part of his armour by day and by night. He was a good soldier, and at San Casciano killed with his own hand the leader of a strong body of French troops sent by Henry VII. to raid the Florentine territory. Jacopo Mannelli took a prominent part in the revolt against the Duke of Athens, and was named custodian of the bridge of Sta. Trinita, but one of his descendants, Filippo, a canon of the cathedral, disgraced the name of Mannelli by revealing the deliberations of the Council of the Republic to the enemy. He died by the hand of another priest in 1536.

The old palace and the tower ran great risk of destruction, or at the least of alteration when Vasari made the corridor between the Pitti palace and the Uffizi. “In order to make the corridor straight,” writes Mellini, “it was necessary to pass through the house of the Mannelli by the Ponte Vecchio, at the end of the Via de’ Bardi; so he [Cosimo I.] sent for the owners of the said house and asked if they were courteously inclined to permit him to make the passage. On the plea that it would spoil their house they refused, and he then placed it as we now see on stone brackets, passing by a sharp turn round the outside of the house. But he bore them no rancour, saying that every one was master of his own.”[46] Two of the family, Jacopo and his son Ottavio, were made Senators in the XVIIIth century, and the family still own and inhabit the palace and the stern old tower which guards the Ponte Vecchio.

PALAZZO MARTELLI

_Via della Forca. No. 8._

The Martelli descend from an ancient family who owned the castle of Stabbiello in the Val di Sieve, one of whom, Martello, came to Florence early in the XIVth century, and from him they took their name. From what Migliore writes, their houses were in Via degl’ Spadai (of the armourers), but as they became more numerous and powerful the name of the street was changed to Via de’ Martelli.[47] When the present palace was built, or by whom, is not known.

Ruberto de’ Martelli, a rich Florentine banker, was created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Paleologus in 1439; some years later Nicholas V. made him Depositary of the Apostolic Chamber, and in 1455 the Republic of Florence sent him to Rome to assist at the Conclave which elected Pope Calistus III. But his name is better known as the patron and friend of Donatello, whom he took into his house as a lad and brought up. “The Martelli have,” writes Vasari, in his life of Donatello, “many objects in marble and in bronze, amongst others a David three braccie high, and many other things, most liberally given by Donatello in attestation of the service and love he bore them; more especially a S. Giovanni, a statue in marble of three braccie high, all finished by him, a most rare piece, now in the house of the heirs of Ruberto Martelli, who made it an heirloom, ordering that it should never be pawned, sold, or given away.” Domenico, brother to Ruberto, was a friend of Cosimo the Elder, who employed him in many embassies, and in 1476 he was Gonfalonier of Justice, one of the nine the family gave to Florence, besides thirty Priors. His son Braccio was among the first of the adherents of the Medici to turn against them when Piero fled the city. He then became one of the _Dieci di Guerra_, in 1495 he was Commissary of the war against Siena, and later of the siege of Pisa. Pietro, his son, a munificent patron of men of letters, had a considerable reputation as a mathematician. His cousin Lodovico was a poet, whose tragedy _Tullia_ is said to have been admired. If true, it only shows that people had more patience in those days, and were content to listen to speeches of intolerable length and tedium. He led the band of Florentine scholars who impugned the genuineness of Dante’s _De Eloquio_, found and published by Trissino. Another Lodovico was the hero of the duel with Giovanni Bandini, fought at Poggio Imperiale in the presence of the Prince of Orange in 1530, so minutely described by Varchi.[48] Lodovico died of his wounds, and his portrait was placed in the Uffizi gallery amongst other patriots, though patriotism had little to do with the duel, which was fought for love of Marietta de’ Ricci.

Camilla Martelli had the misfortune to attract the notice of the Grand Duke Cosimo I., who was induced by Pius V. to marry her in 1560, thus legitimating their daughter Virginia. He soon afterwards retired to the Villa di Castello, virtually abdicating in favour of his son Francesco, who inherited the cruelty and the vices of his father without his ability. The years Camilla spent at Castello with Cosimo can hardly have been happy, but after his death her life was a miserable one; shut up as a prisoner in a convent, out of which she only emerged for a few hours to assist at her daughter’s wedding with the Duke of Modena in 1586, she died, worn out with grief, four years later. Several of the Martelli entered the Church. Francesco became Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1698 and died a Cardinal, and Giuseppe was Archbishop of Florence in 1732. He belonged to the Academy of the Crusca, and was a great collector of books. The Martelli still live in the old family palace, and possess Donatello’s works.

PALAZZO MONALDI

_Via Porta Rossa. No. 20._

The majestic tower of the Monaldi (which has been restored), with part of the old house attached, stands nearly opposite Palazzo Davanzati. I cannot do better than tell the history of the family, mentioned by Dante as among the oldest in Italy, in the words of Piero Monaldi, whose manuscript history has been kindly lent to me by one of his descendants. “Our family comes from the Monaldeschi of Orvieto, and took its origin from the Duke and Baron Monaldo, connected with the famous house of Anjou, who governed Tuscany for the Emperor Charlemagne. His descendants were lords of Orvieto and of many other places in the Tuscan land.... Civil discord between them and the Filippeschi drove Monaldo and his family to Florence; he settled in the parish of Porta Rossa, and built a tower of square hewn stone 430 braccie in height. In this spot they had so many houses that the street was called de’ Monaldi [now Via Monalda]. The houses extended from the Piazza di Sta. Trinita and Porta Rossa as far as the church of Sta. Maria Ughi, until in 1346, on the day of S. John the Baptist, they were nearly destroyed by a very great fire, with the loss of much property, and of the lives of some of the family, as is related by Giovanni Villani. They were at once rebuilt, for the said houses are mentioned in the first _catasto_ of the citizens of Florence as belonging to the sons of Antonio di Guido, who was an ancestor of mine. I note that as _Grandi_ of the city we had not much to do with the government, being in opposition to the people; so that when in 1378 the mob became masters, our family was admonished and condemned; Lipozzo di Mangieri, who was then Podestà of Terra Nuova, being exiled together with his sons. When the recall of the exiles was talked of in 1395, we were again admonished and banished, and some went to Pisa and became citizens of that city, where to this day their ancient monuments can be seen. Buonfiglio Monaldi, a saintly man, one of the seven founders of the Servite Order, was of our family; his brother Buonconte, a knight, captain of Arezzo in 1260, was chosen by Cardinal Latino as one of the guarantors of the universal peace between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines in 1280. Ugo, knight of the Golden Spur, was captain of the cavalry of the King of Hungary, and is mentioned by Verino in his second book, _De Illustratione Urbis Florentie_.

Gloria Folcorum Federicus et Impiger Ugo
Pannoni Regis Turmas ductavit equestres
Pluraque Turcarum caepit Castella Monaldus, etc.

His magnificent tomb in Sta. Maria Novella was destroyed when the church was enlarged, but the old stone of our vault can still be seen in the pavement, on which is inscribed: _Hic jacet_ [_sic_] _Ossa Nobilis Militis Ugonis de Monaldis equitis Florentini et eorum Descendentium_.

“Piero, my grandfather, was captain under the lord Tommaso de’ Medici. Alessandro was captain in 1530, and took the city of Volterra. Another was Archbishop of Rieti, but at present there only remain Fra Francesco, a Cappucin, and Piero di Giovanni, writer of this notice, and of this family history. Our arms have a white peacock on a red field, emblem of the city of Orvieto, from whence we came. Some add a silver rose, given by the King of England to Giovanni Monaldi.”[49] The tower of the Monaldi now belongs to Signor Majolfi.

PALAZZO RAMIREZ DI MONTALVO

_Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 24._

In 1540 a page named Antonio Ramirez di Montalvo came from Spain in the train of the Cardinal Don Giovanni di Toledo, Bishop of Burgos and uncle to the Duchess Eleonora, wife of Cosimo I. de’ Medici. The Cardinal passed some weeks in Florence, and when obliged to proceed to Rome left the lad Antonio, who was ill, in the charge of the Duchess. She took him into her service, and the clever young Spaniard gained the good graces of the Duke, became tutor to the young Prince Francesco de’ Medici, and married Donna Giovanna di Ghevara, one of the ladies-in-waiting of the Duchess. In 1568 he bought a house with a tower and a garden, in Borgo degl’Albizzi, from Giovanni Bonafedi, and afterwards two or three smaller ones adjoining, and then built the palace we now see. By the Duke’s order the overseer of the works at the Duomo supplied him with the wood necessary for the roof, doors, windows, etc., and it appears that Cosimo also gave considerable sums towards the cost of building. With good reason, therefore, the grateful Spaniard placed his master’s arms, instead of his own, on the façade with the inscription: COSMOS;MAGN;FLOR;ET;SEN;D;II.

The palace is decorated in _grafite_, and on a line with the arms are the favourite emblems of the Duke, a capricorn, a tortoise with a sail and two crossed anchors. It has always been attributed to Bartolomeo Ammanati, though neither Baldinucci nor any other contemporary writers give the name of the architect. But as Ammanati was at that time (1566–1569) engaged in rebuilding the bridge of Sta. Trinita, and was Cosimo’s favourite architect (he built the courtyard of Palazzo Pitti), it is more than probable that he was also employed by his courtiers. When Cosimo I. instituted the order of S. Stefano Don Antonio Ramirez di Montalvo was one of the first knights created, and was given a rich _Commenda_ in perpetuity. The name of his grand-daughter, Donna Leonora, is well-known in Florence as the foundress of the convent of Le Quiete, the great school where the daughters of the nobility are educated by nuns called the Signore della Quiete, all ladies of good birth who do not take solemn vows. The life of Donna Leonora, written in 1740, is curious reading. As a baby she reproved her nurse if she was idle, and as a girl she must have been a trial to her father confessor from her scruples and incessant fears that everything was a deadly sin. She had visions, during which Our Lord and the Virgin Mary talked with her; she predicted the restoration to health, or the death, of many people and performed many miraculous cures. A singular mixture of Spanish bigotry and Tuscan common-sense was Donna Leonora. Many of the rules she laid down for the teaching of the young ladies at Le Quiete would be considered admirable at the present day. “Let them be trained to order,” she writes, “and to cleanliness. Teach them to put away their clothes properly.... Let them not be lazy or negligent, but sprightly and diligent. They should know how to sweep and clean a room, how to make a bed, to take charge of the linen and woollen things, and of what pertains to the furniture of the house. They should learn how to nurse a sick person with care, according to the doctor’s orders, and how to prepare all kinds of milk dishes, cordials, candied fruit and sweet pastry. It would be well, too, that they should know how to sew and wash fine linen, such as is used in a sacristy. Not that they are to perform such fatiguing duties, save for exercise and their own pleasure; on the contrary, I desire that they should be served in seemly fashion, but so that in case of necessity they may be able to direct how things ought to be done, for that is most necessary for the good ruling of a household.”[50] After all these excellent, but rather commonplace, precepts, the bewildered reader is suddenly plunged into chapter after chapter of prophecies made, and miracles worked, by Donna Leonora; the miracles continued even after her death in 1659. She did, however, good work in founding the convent of the Signore della Quiete. Her brother, Don Antonio, died in 1581, and was succeeded by the eldest of his five sons. According to his friend Vasari, he drew well, and was a munificent patron of art. The last of the family, another Antonio, inherited the tastes of his ancestor. He was President of the Academy of Drawing in Florence, and Director of the Palatine gallery in Palazzo Pitti; it was under him that the gallery was first thrown open to the public on Sundays and half-holidays in 1833.

In 1739 the palace was let to Baron von Stosch, an antiquary, and a spy in the service of the English government to watch the doings of the Pretender. That delightful old gossip, Sir Horace Mann, notes in 1757, “Baron Stosch is dead at last.... His effects consist only in his Collection, which is very great, and worth a large sum. It is to be offered to the Emperor. He has appointed me and Abbé Buonacorsi his executors, and has left him a picture, and me a cameo, which I might have bought some years ago for six zecchins.” The palace still belongs to a collateral descendant of the old Spanish family, the Count Matteucci Montalvo.

PALAZZO MOZZI

_Piazza Mozzi. No. 3._

When the second line of walls was built round Florence in 1173, the Oltrarno consisted of suburbs, and was chiefly inhabited by the poor. But early in the following century rich and powerful families began to build their houses and towers there, and among them were the Mozzi.

“Mozorum prisca paucide stirpe superunt
Area sola tenet nomen vicina fluente,”

writes Verino. In 1260 Jacopo di Cambio Mozzi was one of the leaders of the Florentine army, and after the defeat of the Guelphs the houses and towers of the Mozzi were sacked and destroyed, for which the city paid them an indemnity. They then built a palace on the same spot, where they received Pope Gregory X. and his whole court in magnificent fashion, when going to the Council of Lyons. All the prelates of distinction who passed through Florence were guests of the Mozzi, as they, together with the Spini, were bankers of the Pope, and farmers of the revenues of the Holy See. For that reason they had houses or correspondents all over the world.

The Pope arrived on the 18th June, 1273, with Charles of Anjou, King of Naples, and Baldwin of Flanders, who styled himself Emperor of Constantinople, “and, as the sojourn of Florence pleased them,” writes Villani, “because of the goodness of the water, the salubrity of the air and the comfort to be found in the city, they determined to spend the summer there. The Pope observing that so fine a city suffered by reason of the parties (for the Ghibellines were in exile), willed that they should return and make peace with the Guelphs, and it was done. On the 2nd July the said Pope, with his cardinals, King Charles, the Emperor Baldwin, all the barons and courtiers, and the Florentine people, collected in the dry bed of the Arno at the foot of the bridge of Rubaconte [now alle Grazie]; and the illustrious and great people took their places on huge scaffoldings of wood which had been erected. And there the Pope judged between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, under pain of excommunication to whomsoever did not obey. He caused the leaders of each party to kiss each other on the mouth and make peace, and give bail and hostages; and all the castles held by the Ghibellines were to be given into the hands of King Charles.” The peace was but short-lived, as the Ghibellines, warned of the evil intentions of the King towards them, left the city four days later.

Things in Florence went from bad to worse, so that Pope Nicholas III. was begged to send a legate to promote peace. Once more Palazzo Mozzi “became a second Rome,” for the Cardinal Fra Latino Frangipani was an honoured guest there in October 1278. His first task was to reconcile the Guelphs, who had fallen out among themselves, and then he made peace between them and the Ghibellines. The “Peace of Cardinal Latino” was signed, amid general rejoicing, in the Piazza Vecchia of Sta. Maria Novella in 1280.

In 1314 King Robert of Naples sent his brother Piero, Count of Gravina, with three hundred horsemen, at the urgent request of the Florentines, to help them against Uguccione della Fagiuola, whom the Pisans had taken into their pay. The young Count dismounted at Palazzo Mozzi in August, and Ammirato describes him as “prudent and discreet. He showed no sign of the pride and haughtiness of royalty in his dealing with the citizens, behaving courteously to all.... To these qualities were added the natural advantages of remarkable beauty both of face and person.” The Florentines were delighted with him, and his death at the battle of Montecatini the following year was sincerely mourned. Seven years later the old palace opened its doors to a very different guest. Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count of Lecce, who was to become the hated tyrant of Florence, stayed there for some time when he first arrived as Vicario of the Duke of Calabria.

Several of the Mozzi were gallant soldiers, and became knights of the Golden Spur. Vanni fought against the Pisans in 1292, and three years later was sent as ambassador to the Pope, to beg him once more to intervene in the internal dissensions of the city. Luigi Mozzi was amongst those sent to Venice to negociate a treaty in 1337, and four years later he was one of the twenty citizens of Florence who treated for the purchase of Lucca. Afterwards he arranged a league with Siena and Perugia. Marcantonio, canon of the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore in 1707, a man of considerable learning, was an “Arcadian,” under the name of Dariseo Gortinano, and Archconsul of the Academia della Crusca. His brother, Pier-Giannozzo Mozzi, was created a Count of the Empire by Napoleon I.

It must have been a grandson of Pier-Giannozzo whom Sir Horace Mann mentions as the friend of the eccentric Lady Orford. She died at Pisa in 1781, and Mann writes: “Mozzi brought me her writing-box, which I opened in his presence, and of a lawyer’s, in which I saw a paper sealed with her seal, and, wrote on the cover by her, ‘A copy of my last will.’... She has left everything she was possessed of to Mozzi.... He is one of the most antient families among the nobilità here, and not poor for this country. She, to be sure, chose him for his beauty, which was then great and in its prime, but she wished it to be thought that his learning (for which he is distinguished, and he has just published some approved works on Mathematicks) biassed her choice.... Mozzi’s attention has been greatly rewarded.” In 1784 Sir Horace notes that “Florence is much amused by the marriage of Lady Orford’s old Cicisbeo, Cavaliere Mozzi.”

The old palace and its large garden was sold by the last of the family a few years ago to the Dowager Princess Carolath Beuthen.

PALAZZO NERLI

_Via de’ Servi. No. 10._

This quaintly shaped palace with a fine courtyard, and ending in a sharp angle at Via de’ Castellaccio, belonged to the ancient family of the Nerli, praised by Dante as still living soberly according to the good old fashion.

“... The sons I saw
Of Nerli, and of Vecchio, well content
With unrobed jerkins; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax. Oh happy they.”

In the XIth century they had houses and a tower in the centre of old Florence and took their name from one Nerlo, son of Signorello di Ridolfo d’Ildebrando di Leone, who lived in 1079. Another Messer Nerlo was Consul of the city of Florence in 1196 and again in 1202. The Nerli joined the sect of the Paterines, and when Fra Piero da Verona preached a crusade against the heretics they fled and took refuge in France. Not being able to burn the living, the Friar desecrated the family tombs and burnt the corpses and the bones of their ancestors. The Nerli remained in France for a hundred and fifty years and must have abjured their heretic faith, as Cosimo the Elder recalled Francesco de Nerlo to Florence, and caused him to be made a _Popolano_ and a Prior, the first of his house. His son Tanay became a man of great consequence in the city, and was one of the chief adversaries of Savonarola. It was at his instigation that the bell of S. Marco, with which the friars had summoned the people to their aid when Fra Girolamo was arrested, was taken to S. Miniato. Tradition says it was never tolled there but once, and that was for the funeral of Tanay Nerli. One of his sons was a good Greek scholar to whom we owe the first edition of Homer. Another son was father to the historian Filippo Nerli (1485–1536), whose Commentary is a model of pure and elegant Italian, but marred by too great a partiality to the Medici, to whom he was related through his wife Caterina Salviati, aunt of Duke Cosimo I. The descendant of another son was Archbishop of Florence and a Cardinal in 1669. About the same time his brother, Senator Nerli, bought the estate of Rassina from the Altieri with the title of Marquess, and one of his sons succeeded his uncle as Archbishop and as Cardinal. The palace now belongs to Signor Fiaschi Cuccoli.

PALAZZO NONFINITO

_Via Proconsolo. No. 12._

“In 1592,” writes Baldinucci in his life of Matteo Nigetti, “Alessandro Strozzi bought a house from Camillo de’ Pazzi, that same Camillo who was father to S. Maria Maddalena, and a small one adjoining with a shop, at Canto del Papa, so-called in olden times from a family who lived there, but afterwards called the Canto de’ Pazzi; near to where the first wall of Florence ended towards the east with the Porta S. Pietro.” They were bought with the intention of building the fine, but unfinished, palace we now see, and Alessandro charged Bernardo Buontalenti not only to make the design but to superintend the work. Nigetti worked under him for seven years, until the façade as far as the sills of the first floor windows on the side towards the Duomo was finished. “The kneeling windows and the door in Borgo degl’Albizzi show how great was the talent of Buontalenti,” says Vasari; “he only built the first floor of the palace, as a difference arose with the owner about a certain staircase proposed by Santi di Tito, who did what little he knew and no more, and the building was then entrusted to other hands.” Scamozzi the Roman architect was at that time in Florence and continued the work for Ruberto Strozzi. When he left, Caccini became the architect and sculptured the fine coat of arms at the corner, shown in the drawing. After his death Nigetti was once more called in to superintend, and Cigoli designed the courtyard. The Guasti family bought the palace in the XVIIth century, and the entrance court, which till then had been open, was roofed over. With so many architects it seems strange that the palace should have remained in such a condition as to have merited the special name of Nonfinito (the Unfinished) in a city where but few of the great buildings are completed. It is possible that some dispute arose between the Strozzi and the Salviati, whose palace was opposite, about the height; in which the latter, connected with the Medici by the marriage of Maria Salviati with Giovanni delle Bande Nere, would have gained the day.

In 1814 the palace was bought by the Grand Ducal government, and Fossombroni, the enlightened minister of Fernando III., inhabited it for some time. It then became the office of the head of the police, and now is the central telegraph office of Florence.

PALAZZO PANCIATICHI

_Via Cavour. No. 2._

This palace was built by Carlo Fontana for the Cardinal Bandino Panciatichi and is celebrated for its fine staircase, the incline of which is so gradual that one of the Panciatichi, an officer on the staff of the Arch Duke of Austria, used to ride upstairs. It was erected on the site of the houses of the Della Casa family, who would not merit special mention if Monsignore Giovanni Della Casa, born in 1503, had not belonged to the chief academies of the day and written _Galateo_, that elaborate essay on good manners whose title has passed into a proverb. He was Archbishop of Benevento in 1544 and soon afterwards Nuncio at Venice. The scandal caused by his burlesque poem _Capitolo del Forno_ probably prevented his being made a Cardinal.[51]

The story of the Panciatichi family would be almost a history of Pistoja, as for more than three centuries the little town was torn to pieces by the bloody feuds between them and the Cancellieri. According to tradition they descend from a Roman Consul:

“Et genus et nomen gens haec Panseatica sumpsit
E Pansa eximio Consule magnanimo;
Belligeri Tuscam Pistori venit ad urbem
Cum cecidit fato consul uterque pari,”

wrote Giovanni Navarra in the XVth century; and in public acts and ancient inscriptions the Panciatichi called themselves _Pansea progenies_. They were lords of many strong castles and townlets in the Apennines; amongst others of San Marcello, which from time immemorial paid them a yearly tribute of 100 lbs. of cheese, 50 loads of beech wood and 3 bushels of chestnuts. The oldest existing document about the family is dated 1057, and relates to Pansa, or Pancio, son of Bellino a knight of the Golden Spur who conceded to the Bishop of Pistoja the right of allowing the friars of S. Salvatore to collect certain tithes. Infrangilasta Panciatichi went to the crusades in 1190 and was taken prisoner by Saladin, but after some months he escaped and returned to Pistoja, where in fulfilment of a vow he gave lands to the church of S. Angelo in Gora.[52] The documents relating to his sons Inghiramo and Lanfranco are curious as showing the feudal rights enjoyed by a great Ghibelline family. Ridolfo Panciaticho, his sons and his brother Angelo, were created knights of the Golden Spur in 1329 by the Commune of Florence, and a few years afterwards the latter was made a citizen. His son Diliano was ambassador to the Emperor Charles IV., and a descendant of his, Bartolomeo, was a most successful merchant at Lyons. His son and namesake, a friend of the artists and men of letters of his day, was himself a poet. In France, where he was ambassador for some years, he became a Protestant, and on his return to Florence was imprisoned by the tribunal of the Inquisition. After suffering torture he publicly abjured in 1552 and was received again into the Roman Catholic Church after long and wonderful ceremonies. The portraits of himself and his wife Lucrezia by Bronzino, are in the Uffizi. His son Carlo, a man of violent temper, was condemned to death for murdering his servant, but was pardoned by Cosimo I. on the condition that he married his mistress Eleonora degl’Albizzi, of whom the Grand Duke was tired after she had borne him a son.

Niccolò Panciatichi, a member of the Academia della Crusca who won some fame as a writer, inherited the palace from his uncle the Cardinal, and married the rich heiress Caterina Guicciardini. He increased the fine library, collected many valuable pictures, and probably placed the Madonna and Child, of the school of Mino da Fiesole, on the corner of the palace. His grandson Niccolò was a great botanist (a taste inherited by the Marchioness Paulucci, his great-granddaughter) and his garden at the Villa La Loggia, where exotic and rare plants were cultivated with wonderful success, was celebrated. In 1762 he married Vittoria, the last of the great Portuguese family of Ximenes d’Aragona, who brought him a large fortune, besides the Marquisates of Esche in Bavaria, of Saturnia in Southern Italy, a palace in Florence, etc. The Panciatichi then added her name and her arms to their own (see p. 398).

PALAZZO PANDOLFINI

_Via S. Gallo. No. 74._

This beautiful, but unfinished, palace was begun by a son of Pandolfo Pandolfini, who went to Naples in 1465 as ambassador of the Florentine Republic. He was so popular there, and became such a favourite with the King, that his son Gianozzo, described as a “jocund and liberal man, honoured by all who knew him,” was made Bishop of Troia. When the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope he summoned Gianozzo Pandolfini to Rome, and created him Governor of Castel Sant’Angelo. But Florence was the place he loved, and he often came to stay in a house he had hired in the Via S. Gallo from the monks of Monte Senario. After improving the house, and turning part of the orchard into a garden, he wanted to buy it, but the monks refused to sell, alleging that in the orchard stood an oratory, or small church, which had once formed part of a convent of Benedictine nuns. Leo X. came to the aid of his friend the Bishop, and by a Papal Bull, dated 28th May, 1517, followed by a Brieve in Feb. 1520, conceded to him, and approved of the sale to him, of the house, land and church, allowing him to suppress and transfer the latter elsewhere if it so pleased him. The Pope at the same time sent some fine marbles from Rome to be used in the decoration of the house. Thereupon Bishop Pandolfini addressed himself to his “most dear friend Raffaello da Urbino,” who, as Vasari tells us, “made for him a design for the palace he wished to build in Via S. Gallo, and Giovanfrancesco da San Gallo was sent from Rome to begin the work, which he did with all possible diligence.”

Bishop Gianozzo died in 1525, so Vasari is in error when he states that the building, which had been interrupted by the death of the architect and the siege of Florence in 1530, was continued by him, with Bastiano da San Gallo, surnamed Aristotle, as his architect. It was most probably Ferrando Pandolfini, a man of considerable learning, to whom his uncle ceded his bishopric of Troia, and to whom he also left the palace, who went on with it, and who caused the inscription to be placed under the cornice, JANNOCTIUS. PANDOLFINIUS. EPS. TROIANUS. LEONIS. X. ET. CLEMENTIS. VII. PONT. MAX. BENEFICIIS. AUCTUS. A. FUNDAMENTIS. EREXIT. AN. SAL. M. D. XX. The original design by Raphael is said to have been curtailed, so that the part which now consists of ground-floor rooms, covered by a large terrace, ought to have formed an integral portion of the edifice. But the building is so beautiful as it stands that one can hardly regret what was left undone.

The entrance door, the windows, especially those of the first floor, which are Ionic, while the lower ones are Doric, and the capitals of the columns surrounding the loggia, are very fine. In 1616 the palace passed to a descendant of Bishop Gianozzo’s third brother, who finished it and laid out the garden, which had been neglected. He also dowered the oratory of S. Silvestro which had been incorporated with the house and not transferred. Roberto Pandolfini, his nephew, inherited the palace in 1655, and it is still in the possession of descendants of the family. Count Alessio Pandolfini restored it in excellent taste in 1875, when the outer door of the small church, or oratory, was made into a window. Florence owes to Battista, another brother of Bishop Gianozzo Pandolfini, the fine doorway of the Badia, which he commissioned Benedetto da Rovezzano to build, and he also erected the tomb to his grandfather, another Gianozzo Pandolfini, in the same church.

PALAZZO PAZZI

_Via del Proconsolo. No. 10._

The Pazzi, who claim a Roman descent, came originally from Fiesole, and were always Guelphs. Excluded by Giano della Bella, in 1292, from all participation in the government of the city, it was only after Cosimo de’ Medici’s return from exile that Andrea de’ Pazzi became a Prior in 1439; when Cosimo gave his granddaughter Bianca in marriage to Gugliemo, Andrea’s grandson. The houses of the various members of the Pazzi family, who all made large fortunes in trade, once extended for some distance along both sides of Borgo degl’Albizzi. But when, towards the middle of the XVth century, the Florentine nobles began to erect palaces in lieu of their old fortified houses, Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi commissioned Filippo Brunelleschi, who designed the beautiful chapel for him in the cloister of Sta. Croce, to build a palace. Poliziano’s statement that Jacopo, Andrea de’ Pazzi’s son, destroyed his father’s house to build this palace, is controverted by documents found by Signor Iodico Del Badia in the archives of the old _catasti_, which show that Jacopo only incorporated an adjoining house he had bought with the one inherited from his father. The splendid palace cannot, however, have been completed when Andrea died in 1445, as his son employed Giuliano da Majano and his brothers to finish it. Another reason for attributing the building to Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi, and not to his son Jacopo, is that the sail, an emblem always used for indicating that the proprietor had made his fortune in trade, is among the ornaments in the centre of the arches of the windows. On the capitals in the courtyard are the dolphins, the arms of the Pazzi, and the vase containing the Holy Fire. This, according to ancient custom, was lit by means of certain stones, brought from the Holy Sepulchre by Pazzino de’ Pazzi, said to have been the first to scale the walls of Jerusalem in one of the crusades.

Under Lorenzo il Magnifico the Pazzi found themselves excluded from office, and their animosity was further aroused by the loss of a lawsuit involving the large fortune of Giovanni Borromeo, whose only daughter had married Giovanni de’ Pazzi, Andrea’s nephew. By Florentine law the daughter should have inherited from her father who died intestate, but it was assigned to her cousin, Carlo Borromeo. Guicciardini makes Pier Capponi say, “Tyrants are forced to watch the action of every one, and to cast down those who seem to them too powerful or too intelligent. Hence arose the wronging of the Pazzi, by an iniquitous law which deprived them of the inheritance of the Borromei, and the varied persecutions of the family, so that desperation drove them into that conspiracy whence came such infinite evils.” Francesco de’ Pazzi, Giovanni’s brother, described by Poliziano as “a man of blood who, when he meditated any design, went straight to his goal, being hindered by no regard for morality, religion, reputation, or fair fame,” quitted Florence and went to Rome, where the Pazzi had a banking house. He knew Sixtus IV. and was aware of his hatred of the Medici, a hatred he gratified by appointing Cardinal Francesco Salviati, a man of evil reputation and bitterly hostile to Lorenzo, to the See of Pisa. At Rome Francesco de’ Pazzi became intimate with the Pope’s so-called nephew, Count Girolamo Riario, Lord of Imola; and Stefano Infessura, the well-informed Roman diarist, affirms that “these things [_i. e._ the murder of the Medici] were ordered by Pope Sixtus, together with the Count Girolamo and others, in order to take away the dominion from Lorenzo and to confer it on the Count Girolamo.” The dying confession of one of their instruments, Giovanbattista di Montesecco, captain in the papal service, fully confirms this.

Advantage was taken of the presence at Pisa of Riario’s nephew, Raffaello, who had just been created a Cardinal. He was summoned to Florence, and Lorenzo, as was his wont, invited him to an entertainment at the Medici villa at Fiesole. The conspirators then determined to murder the two brothers, but Giuliano, being ill, did not go, so the attempt was postponed. Cardinal Raffaello expressing a desire to hear mass in the cathedral of Florence, Lorenzo invited him to go on Sunday, 26th April, and to dine at his palace in Via Larga afterwards. The conspirators then settled, that at the elevation of the Host, when it is customary for all to kneel, the deed should be done. Their design was nearly frustrated by the refusal of Captain Montesecco to commit a murder “where Christ would surely see him.” His place was hastily filled by Stefano da Bagnoni, parish priest of Montemurlo, and secretary to Jacopo de’ Pazzi, and by Antonio Maffei of Volterra, an Apostolic notary, who were to kill Lorenzo; while Francesco de’ Pazzi and one of his braves, Bernardo Bandini, were to fall on Giuliano. Montesecco’s scruples proved fatal to the success of the plot, as the two ecclesiastics blundered and only wounded Lorenzo slightly in the neck. Francesco de’ Pazzi did his work with such fury that he inflicted nineteen stabs on Giuliano, and wounded himself on the thigh. While this was going on in the cathedral, the Archbishop Salviati went to the Palazzo della Signoria, which he intended to seize, while Jacopo de’ Pazzi was to incite the people to revolt. Cesare Petrucci, the Gonfalonier, a shrewd man devoted to the Medici, was struck by the Archbishop’s embarrassed manner and confused speech; so he suddenly left the room, locked the door behind him and went to look out on the Piazza. There he saw Jacopo de’ Pazzi and his followers shouting “Liberty! liberty!” and at once ordered the gates of the palace to be closed. Citizens came running with the news of the assassination of Giuliano, and without a moment’s hesitation Petrucci seized the Archbishop and hung him from the column of a window overlooking the Piazza. Some of his followers, including Jacopo Poggio, son of the historian, were hung beside their leader, the rest were cut down on the staircase or in the courtyard. Francesco de’ Pazzi was seized in bed at his own house, and naked and bleeding from the wound in his thigh was hung by the side of the Archbishop, in whose shoulder he is said to have fixed his teeth in his death agony.

Gugliemo Pazzi, who knew of, but did not participate in, the plot, took refuge from the popular fury in the palace of his brother-in-law Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was banished. Giovanni de’ Pazzi, the husband of the Borromei heiress, eventually died in prison at Volterra, and the seven sons of Francesco de’ Pazzi’s brother Piero were either hung, condemned to perpetual exile, or to imprisonment for life. Jacopo was caught while crossing the frontier into the Romagna, brought back to Florence, and executed. His body was laid in the family vault in Sta. Croce, but the mob disinterred it, dragged it through the streets to his palace and battered the head against the door, amidst ironical shouts that the master wanted to come in. At length the body was thrown into the Arno, followed, as it floated down stream, by a jeering crowd.

In 1498 the fine palace was bought by Francesco Cibo, son of Pope Innocent VIII. and at his death went to his son Lorenzo, whose wife Ricciarda Malaspina was one of the many ladies admired by the base-born Duke Alessandro de’ Medici. Her brother-in-law, the Archbishop of Marseilles, then determined to murder the Duke. Varchi relates that “when Alessandro went to the palace he used to sit on a certain chest which was in the room of the Marchesana, very close to the bed in which she slept. So the Archbishop planned to fill a similar chest with gunpowder, and to set it in the place of the one the Duke was wont to use, and it was to be so made that he might easily set fire to the powder inside when the Duke sat on it. This he did because it seemed to him that the close friendship and great familiarity between the Duke and the Marchesana was a matter of reproach and most shameful. But while all things necessary for carrying out his evil intent were being prepared, the plot was discovered. He was imprisoned until the Emperor came to Florence, when he was released and allowed to go where it best pleased him.”

Some ladies of the Cibo family were the first to introduce carriages into Florence in 1536, but Tommaso Rinnuccini writes: “They were not common even in the beginning of the present [XVIIth] century, and many of the nobility did not use them. Little by little, with the excuse of a marriage, or other such pretext, many adopted them; some with four, the richest even with six horses. At first they were small, made of leather both inside and out, and placed immediately over the axle, so that the movement was most uncomfortable; then they were hung on straps, to be less rough, and finally the straps were attached to carved bands of well-tempered steel which, yielding to any shock, made them still more easy. The handsomest are of black, or of coloured velvet, with fringes inside and out and the tops gilt inside. Till the middle of the century some of the richer inhabitants of the city used a _cocchio_, which was generally lined with rose-coloured velvet and covered with purple cloth; on the top were eight gilt-knobs (_pomi_), but these have gone entirely out of fashion. In 1672 a style of carriage, hung on long straps, was introduced from Paris, which swung and swayed to and fro; they are called _poltroncine_ (small arm-chairs), because they are so comfortable.... At the time I write a sort of covered chair, placed on two long poles, has been imported from Paris; in front the poles rest on the back of a horse, and behind on two wheels, and they swing much. To this chair has been given the name of _calesso_, and in 1667 there were already near a thousand in the city.”

Alberigo Cibo sold the fine old palace in 1593 to Lorenzo Strozzi, in whose family it remained until bought by the Marquess Niccolò Quaratesi in 1760. The family came originally from Castello di Quarata, and Vanni Quaratesi took the side of the people, and was created a knight during the Ciompi riots. Castello, who held high office at various times in the first half of the XVth century, is said to have founded the monastery of S. Salvadore at Monte San Miniato. But dates do not agree, and Signor Passerini is probably right in suggesting that Castello Quaratesi built a small convent for the Franciscans at S. Miniato after the “Operai” of S. Croce refused to allow him to affix his arms on the façade he had intended to build for the church. He left his large fortune to the College of the Guild of Merchants, with a special clause recommending the convent to their care, and they probably carried out his wishes and erected the present church and conventual buildings, designed by Cronaca towards the end of the XVth century. The first Quaratesi houses were on the other side of the Arno, near the church of S. Niccolò, where they lived until the Marquess Niccolò bought the magnificent Pazzi palace built by Brunelleschi. In 1843 it again changed hands, and passed into the possession of the Baron de Rast, who left it by will to a charitable institution in Gotha.

It is curious that the well-known Pazzi arms, the three dolphins, said to have been carved by Donatello, are still _in situ_ at the corner of Borgo degl’Albizzi, for a decree of 1478 ordered them to be destroyed all over the city. It is hardly likely that this shield was replaced after the banishment of Piero de’ Medici, when the decree permitting the descendants of Andrea de’ Pazzi to again put up their arms was passed, because the palace no longer belonged to them. It is, however, still called by their name, and the street corner to this day is known as the “Canto de’ Pazzi.” It is here that the famous colombina, or dove, beloved by all Florentines, flies on Holy Saturday along a cord stretched from the door of the Bank of Italy, built on the site of the greatest of the Pazzi palaces, to the wondrous old painted car, and sets fire to the squibs and crackers piled high upon it.

PALAZZO PERUZZI

_Borgo de’ Greci. No. 10._

The first mention of the Peruzzi family occurs in 1150, when Ubaldino, son of Peruzzo of the Porta della Pera, appeared as a witness about a contract with the convent of S. Salvi. At Montaperti the Peruzzi fought on the side of the Guelphs, when Arnoldo was knighted on the field of battle, and with the rest of their party were exiled until peace was made between Ghibellines and Guelphs in 1280. Nine years later the name of Arnoldo’s son Pacino is mentioned in the archives of the Commune, as receiving rent for certain prisons in his palace on the site of the old Roman amphitheatre, where 800 Aretines and Ghibellines taken in the battle of Campaldino were immured. The name of the street behind S. Firenze, Via di Burella (prison or den), still records their existence. No doubt these were the dens of the wild beasts under the ancient amphitheatre in which S. Miniatus was twice exposed to lions under the Emperor Decius. The circular form can still be traced in the thick walls of the old Peruzzi houses in the Piazza. In 1293 Pacino appears as a purchaser from the Commune of that part of the old walls of the second circuit of Florence which stood where now is Via de’ Benci and the Arco de’ Peruzzi.[53] Four years later he was one of the nine Gonfaloniers of Justice of the family, who also had fifty-four Priors. They were among the richest and most powerful citizens of the XIIIth century, and when King Robert of Naples came to Florence in 1310 he was lodged and magnificently entertained for twenty-four days in their palaces in Piazza de’ Peruzzi. Here was their loggia, used as a kind of private exchange, to which the Arco de’ Peruzzi may have belonged. It stands either on the very spot, or at all events close to where once was--

“The gateway, named from those of Pera.”[54]